The world’s largest banks put in a stellar year of share price performance in 2012 – with an overwhelming 86% of institutions enjoying a positive year – despite the ongoing structural challenges facing the industry and a number of high-profile scandals.

Credit Suisse was among the minority of global banks whose share price fell in 2012, a year in which the MSCI World Banks Index rose by 28%.

Financial News looked at the stock performance of the 89 constituents of the MSCI index that remained in the ranking between January 2 and December 31, 2012. FN also analysed the share price performance of Deutsche Bank, Credit Suisse, UBS, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, JP Morgan, Citigroup and Bank of America Merrill Lynch. All of these institutions have large investment banks but fall under MSCI’s ‘diversified financials’ classification and not its ‘banks’ indices.

A chart of the five biggest risers and fallers in 2012 is attached below.

A total of 83 banking groups ended 2012 with their stock worth more than it had been at the start of the year. These included JP Morgan (up 26%), UBS (24%), Barclays (49%), HSBC (32%) and Standard Chartered (12%), all of which ended the year up despite having endured high-profile scandals.

Barclays and UBS were both fined heavily for their roles in the manipulation of the London interbank offered rate, while JP Morgan was left nursing a multi-billion dollar loss following soured bets on a CDS index made by a London trader at its Chief Investment Office. HSBC and Standard Chartered, meanwhile, received financial penalties from US regulators for lax money-laundering controls and breaches of US sanctions against Iran, respectively.

The bank last month issued €1.25bn in new shares to be used to help repay the state-aid it received from the Belgian government during the financial crisis. One analyst told Financial News that, while KBC had been an “awful performer” in 2011, it had “done a very good job of cleaning up its business” in 2012.

Related

Bank of America Merrill Lynch was the best performing bulge-bracket bank in 2012, with its shares doubling to $11.61 apiece by the end of December. Other stand-out performers included the UK’s state-backed Royal Bank of Scotland and Lloyds Banking Group, both of which saw share price rises more than 50% over the year. RBS’s increase takes into account a 10-for-1 reverse stock split in June last year.

In contrast, Credit Suisse shares fell 3% to Sfr22.26 ($24.28) over the period, making it one of only 14 global banks whose stock ended the year down. The biggest faller was Spain’s Bankia, shares in which plummeted 89% to €0.391.

Spanish and Italian banks, whose domestic economies endured a turbulent year under the strain of the eurozone debt crisis, were heavily represented among the fallers. Shares in Italian bank Unicredit were down 43% over the period, while Portugal’s Banco Espirito Santo was down 34%

Of the 14 banks, Credit Suisse had the largest market capitalisation at the end of 2012.

Chris Wheeler, a banks analyst at Mediobanca, said Credit Suisse had a “fantastic 2009” but had suffered a “series of disappointments” since.

The Swiss bank is in the process of a Sfr2bn cost-cutting programme and in November announced a raft of changes designed to streamline its business. A number of senior bankers switched roles and the bank also said it would wrap its asset management business into private banking.

Wheeler added that investors had compared Credit Suisse with local rival UBS, which announced a much tougher restructuring plan last year. He said: “The [Credit Suisse] reorganisation was disappointing, as any benefit they might’ve got has gone because UBS has done something much more dramatic.”

Brady Dougan, chief executive of Credit Suisse since 2007, is widely credited by analysts as having steered the bank away from the worst ravages of the financial crisis, but, according to a November note from JP Morgan banks analyst Kian Abouhossein, he faces a “make or break” year.